Many
are shocked that the Tazewell County, IL Sheriff's Office returned four guns belonging
to Travis Reinking, the Nashville Waffle House suspect, to his father. Reinking's
weapons were taken from him after he was arrested for behaving aggressively outside
the White House in July 2017. A month earlier, Reinking threatened someone with
an AR-15 while wearing a pink housecoat, dove into a public pool and exposed
himself to others say police records. The
father "was advised that he needed to keep the weapons secure and away
from Travis" reads the sheriff's office report. Yet the dad didn't and now four are dead.

This
is hardly the first time gun-friendly authorities have returned weapons to
violent offenders. Early last year, the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting
suspect, Esteban Santiago, had his gun returned to him and proceeded to kill
five and injure eight with it.

On
Nov. 7, Santiago walked into an Anchorage FBI office telling agents he was experiencing
terroristic thoughts and believed he was being influenced by ISIS, according to
police reports. He was incoherent and agitated and had a Walther 9mm pistol in
his car. He was given a psychiatric evaluation, transferred to the Alaska
Psychiatric Institute and released on November 14. On December 8, Anchorage
Police returned Santiago's firearm to him.

Even
Santiago's brother, Bryan, was shocked that U.S. authorities would return his
gun when it was known that he was increasingly paranoid and hearing voices. He
had also been charged with domestic abuse.

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Then
there is Kyle Aaron Huff, who committed what is known as Seattle's Columbine in
2006. Police in Whitefish, MT, his hometown, seized Huff's firearms when he
shot up a public art installation called "Moose on the Loose" and was
charged with destroying art, a felony. But after Huff pleaded guilty to a
reduced misdemeanor charge of mischief, not a felony, authorities cheerfully
returned his lethal weapons. Huff went on to kill six at a rave after party.

Like
so many mass shooters, Huff stockpiled weapons. In addition to his 12-gauge
pistol-grip Winchester 1300 Defender shotgun and a .40-caliber semiautomatic
Ruger P944 handgun used at the rave, police found a Bushmaster XM15 E2S rifle,
another handgun and several more boxes of ammunition in his truck and more guns
and ammunition in his apartment.

Finally,
there is the case of James Hodgkinson, whose guns were never taken from him
despite St. Clair County, IL sheriff deputies visiting his house at least six
times, domestic abuse charges against him and neighbors complaining of him
firing a rifle at trees. St. Clair County, IL sheriff deputies, when they
showed up, just told him to not shoot at trees. Right. He went on to shoot
three last June at the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity in Washington
D.C.

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While
the NRA bellows, "the real problem is mental illness" after every
mass shooting, behind the scenes it works for the rights of mentally ill people
to keep their guns or have them returned.

After
the Virginia Tech murders, NRA lobbyists pushed through a gun restoration
provision for mentally ill people in national background check laws. "In
several ways this bill is better for gun owners than current law," boasted the
NRA website because "certain types of mental health orders will no longer
prohibit a person from possessing or receiving a firearm."

Thanks
to the gun lobby maneuver, Sam French, a Virginian who was involuntarily
committed to a psychiatric facility and told authorities he heard voices, had
his right to possess firearms reinstated and his gun returned after a short
court hearing in 2009. Why should hearing voices intrude on his "gun rights"
barked the gun lobby--a question reactivated by the Nashville massacre

Martha Rosenberg is an award-winning investigative public health reporter who covers the food, drug and gun industries. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, is distributed by Random (more...)